


Musculus sternocleidomastoideus

by boboton



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anatomy, Bittersweet, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Butch/Femme, Clubbing, Coming Out, Dom Harry Potter, Dom/sub, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Freeform, Grinding, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Making Out, POV Harry Potter, Queer Character, Queer Themes, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Sub Draco Malfoy, Top Harry, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 14:00:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19792354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boboton/pseuds/boboton
Summary: Harry remembers his Auror training; Draco remembers everything else."Their lips met as if an afterthought, like the intimacy they shared would be tangible with or without this added element"





	Musculus sternocleidomastoideus

It was the sternocleidomastoid muscle, Harry finally remembered. It had been nagging at him all night. He received hours upon hours of training on interrogating suspects but that one piece always stuck with him. The best visible evidence that a suspect is lying is if their SCM is tensed. What made this an imperfect test was the fact that many people held tension in this particular muscle, whether it be from stress or trauma or simply the way they carried their body. His own was thick and ropey, fibrous to the touch. Invisibility was futile and came at a cost.

Something about this bothered him. He had never thought about this muscle in an anatomical sense, nor had it occurred to him to use its appearance in others as a tool. As soon as the instructor indicated her own SCM in her neck, Harry had a flash of delicate blue veins climbing a long, pale column. A triangle of silk, paper thin, covering the precious life force just beneath the surface. He blinked once more and the vision was gone.

Now he sees it once more, yet this time it does not disappear when he opens his eyes. Rather, it sways and tips back and, impossibly, further elongates. His body could not resist the temptation to touch. Before his brain had registered its intention, his feet carried him to his target.

His eyes remained closed, his body swaying as if it had no bones at all but instead was made of some otherworldly element, one that was ever transforming, never still. The chemical compound constantly morphing until what you saw one second was not what you saw the next.

Harry's hand reached out, his thumb grazing one side, his fingers grasping the other. To an onlooker, it may have appeared that he was choking him. Yet his fingers were gentle and questing. Asking this body how it came to such peace.

Perhaps the eyes could tell him. They opened slowly, as if he already knew whose fingers traced the lifeline flowing underneath. The muscles stayed pliant and soft. It made Harry want to squeeze harder, find out what it took to bend. How far would he be permitted to go?

His neck arched backwards once more, and his groin unintentionally thrust forward towards Harry's. For a split moment, the touch sent an electrical current up through his limbs as they briefly brushed through several layers of clothing. Then once more. He must feel it too.

On the next pass, Harry felt a thickening that mirrored his own. Still feather light, yet it was difficult to distinguish where the separation began. It felt like an accident yet surprise was far from his mind.

Nothing about this was unexpected. His hand moved from the front to the back, caressing the microscopic hairs that were only visible in the iridescent light. The colors flashed and pulsed, leaving imprints on his skin and in his corneas when he closed his eyes.

He didn't touch him, not yet. Harry was sort of desperate for it. His hands became hard, he could feel the callouses scraping. Yet those hands remained at his sides, his arms pulled slightly away from his midline, behind him. Harry's other arm wrapped around his waist, pulling them flush. His hand crept towards the sacrum, feeling bumps in the spinal cord, dips and valleys. His hand cupped his occiput, cradled it. His fingers stroked and nurtured, his touch gentle.

Then, his fingers twisted in the tousled mess, feeling the dampness and the slight stiffness from too much product. They pulled and tugged until he heard a low groan, and hands grabbed below his arse, where his hamstrings met the curve. Fingers dug in so deep he could feel his tendons giving way easily, as if they were waiting for this.

Their lips met as if an afterthought, like the intimacy they shared would be tangible with or without this added element. Their tongues mingled softly, hesitant to push too far, neither one wanting to disrupt this flow that hadn't been there before.

Though Harry realized, almost absentmindedly, that perhaps the undercurrent, the precursor, all the excess energy, that had been there for quite some time. It was only now that some of that energy was moving, had purpose, a place to go, that he was able to feel how much had demanded to be felt. His sternum felt lighter, as if the bone had been lifted by a string, up towards the ceiling. He stepped back and felt what it was to inhale completely. Perhaps he never had before; it felt foreign and strange.

He looked up; after all, he was taller. This felt foreign as well. But in the same way his returned breath felt — like it was a memory long since past yet now so present. He remembered learning about the theory of space and time, how some believe that they can be folded like a piece of paper and what might have taken a lifetime to travel takes seconds. He felt like that in this moment, taking in the image of his heaving chest while his own breath mirrored.

He grabbed his wiry bicep and raised his eyebrow a few millimeters. Onlookers would not see, nor anyone who wasn't paying attention. But his audience was rapt, and the response instantaneous. He closed his eyes as he felt them swirling away.

They land softly and take full advantage of their new setting. Fingers get caught in strings, roughly shorn nails snag on expensive fabrics. Silken strands drape themselves like tentacles reaching outward, away from here, then are summoned back by their own desire.

Harry hardly notices the hard lines, the slick, the drip. All he can see is the vein he wants to claim. He holds him down and watches it pulse, quick enough to want to be heard, gentle enough to seek silence. As he melts into the sweet soft, his frame loses the fight. His bones remember their weight. His muscles learn what it is to be still. His neck arches, baring itself to his judgement. Asking for forgiveness. Asking to be seen.

Harry honors this gift. He spends time laving his tongue on his treasure, only now finding when he sought. He bites down slowly on this muscle, one which has been sharp in the past, he remembers, the pointed, scared boy. The one who wasn't sure who was his enemy; who understood.

This boy has decided to trust him. Harry could not recall what he might have done to deserve that, but his heart was filled with gratitude.

**Author's Note:**

> I just graduated massage school and this idea came to me recently! It was inspired by my own self-massage on my SCM. I made up all the stuff about a tense SCM being a way to tell if someone is lying, although I wouldn't be surprised if there was a connection. Any way, forgive my writing a fic as an excuse to study for my qualifying exam coming up this week! Although, to be fair, there was very little relevant anatomy involved in this particular fic.
> 
> I hope it was enjoyable nonetheless, and please don't hesitate to comment with any thoughts or reactions! It is such a treasure to connect with others over one's own work! 💖✨


End file.
